Tag: Heather Fawcett

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Heather Fawcett
Genres: Fantasy
Pub. Date: Jan. 2024

I sound like a broken record, but I cannot get enough of Heather Fawcett’s books! Emily Wilde is her first adult fantasy series and I am obsessed! I’m so glad to see it get such high reviews because I do think it’s the type of series that’s not for everyone. It’s a slow burn read and I don’t think it’s everyone’s type of storytelling because it leaves the reader to work out a lot of the intricacies of the world-building. But I think it’s also why it’s resonating with so many people. 

This fantasy world is a mix of the real world and the faerie world. It’s never quite explained to us, but rather it feels like you’re walking into this fully formed world to discover it for yourself. It’s always going to seem a bit mysterious to the reader, but the people in this world don’t really understand faerie either, so that’s exactly the way it should be!

If you’ve heard the term “cozy fantasy”, this is it. Despite always having the coldest settings in her books, this story is filled with warmth. Choosing to tell the story through Emily’s diary entries definitely isn’t the easiest way to build drama because by the time Emily gets around to writing about the drama, you can be lulled into security by knowing that she has at least escaped and is now safe enough to write about it. But this narration also works so well because Emily has the perfect voice to tell this story. Her logical and scientific mind is able to maintain a certain distance from what’s taking place around her, but her soft heart lends a sweet, emotional aftertaste to the story. 

This is the second book in the series and it picks up more or less where the first book leaves off. Emily, Wendell, and Shadow return in this book, but we are also joined by two new characters, Ariadne and Rose. Rose was a good foil to the story and it was fun to see Emily grapple with her academic pursuits while also trying to wrangle her young and enthusiastic niece, Ariadne. It’s another slow burn story, but somehow, it just works so well with this series.

No fantasy is complete without a romantic side plot and this one is so precious! Where most fantasy heroines these days are fiery and passionate, Emily is methodical and soft. She’s undeniably interested in Wendell, but given the complications of where they are both from, the logical part of her brain very much tries to win out over the romantic part. It’s such a different approach to romance than other popular fantasy series and that’s why I think it’s so refreshing. Emily has a different kind of strength and it’s nice to be reminded that women can be a hero in many different ways. She’s not the ‘chosen one’, she doesn’t have any magic, but she is quietly assured of her good reasoning and intellect and uses her smarts to outwit faeries rather than to fight them.

Anyways, this was a pleasure to read from start to finish. The setting and characters are impeccable. I’m so glad we get to spend one more book with Emily and Wendell and I can’t wait to see where the story will go!

The Islands of Elsewhere

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Heather Fawcett
Genres: Middle Grade, Fiction
Pub. Date: Jun. 2023

Heather Fawcett amazes me so much. She’s a local (to me) author and she just keeps pumping out books at a wild pace! It’s been so great to see her first adult book, Emily Wilde, getting so much praise, but don’t sleep on her YA and middle grade books! She never disappoints and consistently knocks it out of the park with her settings.

I’m still working my way through her middle grade books, but I read this one was about Vancouver Island and bumped it up on my list. She writes mostly fantasy, but I would say this book is more magical realism or fantasy lite. There’s some ghosty references, but otherwise it’s pretty much fiction.

Anyways, she nails the setting as usual. The Islands Of Elsewhere is about the 3 Snolly sisters, who travel to their granddaddy’s property in coastal Vancouver Island for the summer to help their mom look after him as he battles dementia. They learn about a potential buried treasure that they believe would enable them to move to their granddaddy’s property permanently to look after him, so they set out to explore the nearby fairy islands.

It’s a nice family story, with just enough spookyness from the remote setting. It’s a fictional town, but it’s clearly modeled after Tofino, so I loved imagining the 3 sisters running around the beaches and exploring coves. It’s a fun and lighthearted read, my only criticism would be that it’s maybe a little too conveniently packaged in the end. Lots of children likely have had or will have exposure to their grandparents becoming forgetful and I would have liked to see that theme explored in a little more depth. It’s sad, but children are resilient.

Otherwise, a really quick and nice summer read (though I read it in December lol).

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Heather Fawcett
Genres: Fantasy, Historical
Pub. Date: Jan. 2023

I’ve been a fan of Heather Fawcett for years (BC based author!) and I’m so glad to see so much buzz about Emily Wilde this year! If you liked this one, definitely go check out her YA series, Even the Darkest Stars, which I also love. Besides that she has a few middle grade books that are still a lot of fun. I’ve seen Emily described as “cozy fantasy” and I would describe all her books that way.

Because her last few books have all been middle grade, I assumed Emily Wilde was also middle grade. I was delighted to learn that it’s actually her first adult fantasy! It reads a bit more like YA, but there’s definitely some violence in here. It’s very infrequent and not gratuitous, but who knew such handsome faeries could be so casually violent when they get angry. 

Anyways, let’s get into it – Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries is set in the fictional country of Ljosland (although Google informed me this is also a small village in Norway). It’s appropriate because Ljosland is a cold, northern country that made me think of Finland or Iceland (or Norway). Emily is a young professor who has been working for many years writing an encyclopaedia of faeries and this is her last field trip to research “the hidden ones”. 

Initially she finds it hard to fit in in cold Ljosland and is not sure why the villagers have rejected her. Things get even more challenging when her enigmatic colleague Wendell Bambleby arrives at her cottage and she fears he has come to piggyback off her research and success. However, the two soon discover that there is something nefarious going on between the hidden ones and the villagers and Emily must apply all her research of faeries to help protect the villagers.

This is quite different from most other fantasy novels I’ve read and even though I found it a bit slow moving, I really enjoyed it. I’ve always said that Heather Fawcett is great at creating setting and atmosphere and this novel was no exception. She really excels at writing these desolate, cold landscapes and despite the chill, I love to escape into them. What I liked about this book is that Fawcett trusts her reader to be able to infer information and context without spelling it out for them. This world is very similar to our own world (though set in 1909), with only subtle changes in terms of geography and the existence of faeries. Her world building is strong and I felt like I walked straight into this slightly kooky world that was fully realized without a lot of tedious info dumping. In short – she’s good at showing, not telling. A skill many fantasy authors have not been able to hone.

Emily is a great character. She’s relatable, yet flawed. She’s intelligent, capable, and quick-witted, yet she recognizes when she should ask for help. She makes lots of smart decisions and plays hero to several of the villagers, yet she also makes mistakes and requires a rescue of her own. Despite being set in a fantastical world of faeries, she’s incredibly genuine and believable, which I think will appeal to a lot of readers.

Like any good fantasy, this story also has a side-romance. It’s definitely subtle, but this is one of my favourite types of romances. It doesn’t dominate the storyline, rather Fawcett focuses on relationship building, while weaving a simple element of romance between the characters. Their love is tangential to the story, but makes it so much more meaningful because of it. Any good series author will also weave ongoing plotlines throughout multiple novels, which Fawcett has done, so I can’t wait to see where this relationship goes in the next book.

So overall, there was a lot to like about this book, but I do have some criticisms as well, mostly with the ending. The book moves along at a pretty slow pace – I didn’t mind it, but overall I thought it had some pacing issues. What I didn’t like was how quickly everything wrapped up at the end of the book. I felt like the story ended too quickly and was not resolved. There’s no real conclusion to the conflict the village was having with the faeries and it seemed to me like Emily and Wendell were just disappearing off into the night without accomplishing their objectives. Otherwise, it was a really fun book. I’ll definitely be picking up book 2 when it releases and may now have to get to a few of her backlist books that I haven’t read yet!

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Spoilers Below

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What was the most frustrating to me was how Emily stopped the poisoning plot because “it didn’t feel right”, basically because it wasn’t in line with the faeries stories and she didn’t want to see things ended that way. So instead they run away and leave things even more unresolved in my opinion. As a reader, it just didn’t feel very satisfying. I was hoping to see some resolution in Emily and Wendell’s relationship as well, but that one I could accept because it will be continued in book 2. It doesn’t sound like we’ll be returning to Ljosland, so the poor village is going to be more or less left on their own. Overall, I just felt like I had whiplash from how quickly the story ended and it left me feeling a bit unsettled and incomplete. I would have liked to see a bit more closure to the main plot points. It just felt a bit sloppy.

Ember and the Ice Dragons

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Heather Fawcett
Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade
Pub. date: Oct. 1, 2019 (read Oct. 2019)

I wish I didn’t wait so long to write my review for this book because I really loved it! Heather Fawcett is killing it with her books and I’m really drawn to the settings she creates. I loved her Himalaya inspired fantasy world in Even the Darkest Stars and loved the blend of fantasy she created in Ember and the Ice Dragons.

Ember and the Ice Dragons is a middle grade fantasy series set in our world, but with magic. Ember’s adoptive father is a magician that chases storms because they are where he gets his magic from. On one adventure he discovers a baby dragon, Ember, and turns her into a human to save her life and hide her, because unfortunately the fire dragons have since been hunted to extinction.

As you might expect, Ember struggles in England because she has a tendency to randomly burst into flames and as such, is afraid to make friends. Eventually she convinces her father to ship her off to Antarctica to live with her Aunt because she is much less likely to catch fire in the cold climate. Once in Antarctica, Ember is surprised when two other children, Nisha and Moss, attempt to befriend her. She’s also enraged to discover that the ice dragons of Antarctica are also being hunted and targeted, same as the fire dragons were in England. She teams up with Nisha and Moss to take down the hunt and save the ice dragons.

Like I said, I loved the setting. Most of the book is set in Antarctica and loved reading about it. Fawcett likes to set her stories in the bitter cold outdoors and it just makes for such an enjoyable reading experience in the fall and winter. Ember is the perfect heroine – with just the right amount of spunk and vulnerability. I liked watching her come of age and finally starting to make friends and build relationships with those around her instead of constantly being afraid of being discovered. Fawcett is also good at writing perfect villains and anti-heros and I like that some of her characters are flawed, yet still good.

This read like a standalone, so I’m not sure if Fawcett is planning on expanding the world or not. I kind of hope not because I think this works well as a standalone and I want to see what other types of worlds she will dream up!

All the Wandering Light

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Heather Fawcett
Genres: Fantasy
Pub Date: Dec. 2018 (read Feb. 2019)
Series: Even the Darkest Stars #2

I was REALLY REALLY hoping this would be a trilogy! I didn’t love Even the Darkest Stars that much the first time I read it, but since re-reading it, I’m pretty much trash for this series! I’ve read a lot of fantasy and to be honest, I haven’t been loving a lot of it that much. I took a 3 month break from fantasy and after reading mostly fantasy in January, I think I’m ready for another break.

But I LOVED this series! I haven’t felt this way about a fantasy series in a while and I loved the outdoor adventure aspect of this one. I can tell Fawcett loves the outdoors and I really related with Kamzin’s desire for adventure. I was really impressed with the depth Fawcett added to the plot and to her world building in this book. There were several subplots and a few mystery elements that ran throughout the series, like what is Ragtooth? What will be the long term impact of creating a contract with Azar-at? and what’s up with Tem and River?

But before I get ahead of myself, Even the Darkest Stars is a duology set in a fantasy world based on Nepalese culture and early exploits of Mount Everest. The legendary Mount Raksha is the focus of the first book, with Kamzin chasing after her dream to be a Royal Explorer by attempting to climb the treacherous mountain to claim a lost talisman so that the emperor can stop the witches from regaining their powers. In All the Wandering Light, Kamzin has succeeded in climbing Raksha, but failed in her task and the witches have regained their powers and now threaten the empire. When a falling star lands in the Ashes Mountains, Kamzin sets out to retrieve it and stop the witches from using it’s incredible power.

Even the Darkest Stars was told entirely from Kamzin’s point of view and in the second book, we get some more perspectives, mostly from River and occasionally Mara. Kamzin and River have split up, but because of Kamzin’s new contract with Azar-at, their fates seem to be closely entwined. Kamzin sets out with Lusha and Tem to claim the star, while River fights with his brothers about the future of the witches and empire. I wasn’t really sure what the focus would be of book 2, but I was glad it included more wandering around the wilderness. Kamzin eventually makes her way to the Three Cities, which changes the direction of the plot, but introduced some new elements and tension into the book. Up until Kamzin arrives in the Three Cities, the conflict in this book was mostly person vs. nature, with the exception of the internal and relationship conflicts. But the story becomes a bit more of a traditional fantasy when River’s brother Esha claims the witch throne and becomes the main villain of the story.

So what did I like so much about this book? Obviously, I loved the adventure element of the story and the fight against the natural elements. I really loved Kamzin as a character. I thought she was a fantastic heroine for the story. She is courageous, but extremely relatable. She makes a lot of mistakes, but is driven by a desire to shape her own destiny. She very much wants to be recognized and this desire sometimes gets her into trouble and causes her to make poor decisions. But ultimately she cares about those closest to her and will do everything to protect them.

I also really liked River’s character. He was so fickle in the first book and it always catches me off guard how detached he is. I like that Kamzin is driven by feeling, while River is mostly driven by logic, except in the case of Kamzin, who inexplicably holds a powerful influence over him. I think it’s because he’s never really been tested and is used to always being the best. Kamzin was the first person the challenge him. River is conflicted in this book and I loved the dichotomy of him wanting to free the witches, but also wanting to protect the empire he has grown to care about.

Like I said, the depth of the world building in this book surprised me. The first book was a little confusing, but the world building in this book felt fully formed, with just enough mystical elements to keep us guessing. Fawcett explores what is right and wrong and how our perceptions can be influenced by our experiences. The witches are undeniably evil in this book, pillaging villages and seeking revenge for the binding of their powers. But their rage is born out of having their powers stolen from them for the last 200 years by the emperor. At one point there was balance between the witches and the shamans, but that balance is lost and seeks to be restored. Kamzin struggles to think of the witches as inherently bad because of the time and experiences she had with River.

There’s also the question of what impact Kamzin’s contract with Azar-at will have on her soul and what kind of powers Ragtooth is actually hiding? I loved Ragtooth in this book (and the last book) and I was really happy to see Fawcett spend time on smaller plot points, because the culmination of all these thoughtful details is really what makes a book great. She also explores the power of the fallen star and whether power is always a good thing. All power comes at a cost and Fawcett repeatedly re-visits this idea in her characters.

My biggest complaint would be having this series only be a duology instead of a trilogy. I know now that the series was originally purchased as a duology, but I really think this series has the potential for a third novel and that it’s actually doing the series a disservice not to have one. I think the world Fawcett expanded on in this book outgrew it’s 400 pages. She took the story to more depth than she was able to resolve in the confines of this book.

The ending was very unsatisfying to me because I don’t think the conflict has been resolved. I no longer think Kamzin in interested in merely wandering the empire as an explorer, but rather that she wants to be an agent for change and for good in the empire. She’s one of the few people who understands the plight of the witches and questions the ultimate power of the emperor. I don’t think the witches would just roll over and move on after the showdown in the palace and I think there is so much room to explore more about the Emperor and where his powers come from. He’s a pretty big enigma in the story and it was never clear to me if he was eventually meant to be a hero or a villain. He’s up to some shady-ass shenanigans and I would really love to see his power explored more, as well as the relationship between the empire and the witches.

Mostly I just think this world and story has so much more potential. I’d love to see it expand and grow to include more character perspectives, like Tem and Lusha’s. I would say the character development of the secondary characters is probably the second flaw with this series. Kamzin has a wonderful character arc and I thought her development was really well done, likewise River. But I don’t think either Tem or Lusha’s characters were fully developed. Especially Lusha. She’s a bit of a controversial character in that she is so important to Kamzin, yet constantly acts as a foil to her. Lusha is really interesting and I’d love to know more about her history and the experiences that have formed her into who she is now. She’s a bit of a grating character, but I’d like to understand her better.

Don’t get me wrong though. I think this is an extremely strong debut series. I think there are ways it could be improved, but I had a great time reading it. Fawcett has already been signed for a middle grade series and you can bet I’ll be reading it! In the meantime, I’ll be lamenting the third book to this series that never was, but should be!